


What Remains

by Miss_M



Category: Gattaca (1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Continuation, Friendship, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: Irene and Jerome, left behind.





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luckybarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckybarton/gifts).



> I own nothing.

“How did you get in?” Jerome demanded. 

Irene looked as immaculate as ever, though her eyes were red. “Vincent left me an envelope with a house key inside it. No note. I suppose he thought that would be overkill.” 

Jerome thought back to his own “goodbye note” to Vincent. How subtle they both were! 

“He didn’t think to include a leash, though, did he?” Jerome said, suddenly furious. “Or a pint of vodka. Rather leaves you to figure out what to do once you get inside.”

Irene looked him in the eye. “I don’t think he intended for me to move in and take possession of the deceased’s property.” 

Jerome held her gaze. _Who does she think she is?_

He looked down at his lap. He’d been half in and half out of the incinerator when Irene had found him, his embarrassment at being found inside having bested his death wish once he’d realized he was not alone. She’d offered to help him into his chair, but he’d snapped that she knew nothing about the care and feeding of paraplegics and to let him manage. At least she hadn’t asked if he’d been sat inside the incinerator because he’d been cleaning it.

“I can’t help you, Irene. I can’t even help myself. Go home. Leave me alone.” All this Jerome said to his useless legs, and so the practiced - he even might have said _engineered_ \- conviction rang decidedly hollow.

She did not respond, but neither did the sharp staccato of her heels depart from Jerome’s presence, and so eventually he felt obliged to look up at her where she stood. 

“I’m not here out of pity,” Irene said. “Nor even because Vincent asked me to. I just…” She looked around, at the equipment covered in plastic sheeting, the incinerator, Jerome in his wheelchair. She shook her head, looking for a moment on the verge of tears, and Jerome knew he was not equipped to handle that.

“First things first,” he said briskly and, he hoped, kindly. “We need to get drunk. Right now.”

Irene was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that looked freshly ironed despite having been in her pocket all day. “Why?”

“Isn’t that what people do when they’re bereaved? Or when they have a new acquaintance to get to know.”

Again she looked at him, calm and unflinching. And to think those fools wouldn’t send _her_ to the stars. “I’m not going to sleep with you if you get me drunk, Jerome.”

Jerome scoffed. “How sweet of you to assume I’m the type.”

Irene took a few steps away from him, looked down at a box of empty urine pouches under its plastic shroud. “One thing,” she said, her back turned.

“What?”

“I want to know everything.”

Jerome knew exactly what she meant. “About what, the Solar System, Olympic training, the fine art of oenology? I’m an expert in all three.”

She turned and looked at him. That could become a problem – Jerome’s lived-in sarcasm was no match for Irene Cassini’s level gaze.

“I want to know how you did it, you and Vincent. How you pulled it off.”

Jerome sighed. “Why torture yourself? You were lied to, he felt terrible about it, satisfy yourself with that.”

Irene flinched a little, and Jerome felt like a proper shit for condescending to her. 

“That’s not what I…” Her voice trembled before she seized control of herself. “It just seems so uncanny,” she whispered.

Jerome felt himself smiling without malice or bluster or even bitterness. How strange. “Irene, you cannot begin to imagine.”

“I don’t want to imagine. I want to know.” Irene’s voice was level again. Steady as gliding through vacuum, or water.

Jerome mimed delight in a new discovery. “I do believe that’s Gattaca’s new official motto. You can drive, as I recall?”

She blinked, just the once. “Very well, actually. I enjoy it.”

If she could confess to a personal preference in the same breath in which she listed exceptional motor skills as a part of her genetic makeup, there was hope for her yet. As for himself, Jerome refused to pass judgment just yet.

“Car keys are on a hook by the front door.” She must have driven her sleek convertible over, but Jerome wanted the illusory home-team advantage of his own car. “Give me five minutes.” 

The silver medal was still in his pocket, where he’d stashed it once he’d realized there was an intruder in his house. The thought that Vincent had returned, had not gone up to Titan after all, that foolish hope had come and gone in a nanosecond. Of course, _of course_ that would have been absurd, not to mention Jerome would have murdered Vincent if he’d given in to gross sentiment, after all the blood and piss and dead skin Jerome had given him. The Hoovers wouldn’t have needed to look for stray eyelashes, Jerome would have surrendered and pleaded the victim’s insanity as an extenuating circumstance. 

He slipped the medal into his socks-and-boxers drawer – an obvious hiding place, but it had the elegance of tradition.

Irene was waiting by the door when he rolled himself back to her. She was squeezing the car keys much too tightly in her fist, like she feared they’d escape her otherwise. Jerome felt much the same, about how his day had ( _not_ ) gone, about going to get only metaphorically legless with Irene, about Vincent and about Vincent leaving. 

“How good a driver are you after six or seven martinis?” Jerome asked. 

Irene smiled, quirking an eyebrow. “Is that a double dare?” 

“Absolutely.” 

The way the corner of her mouth and her eyebrow pulled up in tandem distorted the perfectly designed symmetry of her face. Damn Vincent, all those months in his company seemed to have sharpened Jerome’s dull appreciation for human imperfection. Since it didn’t look like he would be committing suicide any time soon, _again_ , he figured he’d better find a way to get comfortable with that. 

It occurred to him that Irene must feel the same confusion, the same ennui. Perhaps that would make things between them easier.

“I should warn you,” Irene said, more lightly than she likely felt. “Recent events have provided quite the stimulus to my competitive streak.” 

Jerome rolled out into the mild spring night. “Oh good,” he said. “Another bloody overachiever.”

Irene laughed - wanly, but she did laugh - as she pulled the door shut behind them and walked alongside Jerome to his car.


End file.
